Justine Lee

Tinting the Green Movement

Allison Chin is the first person of color to be president of the Sierra Club.

Writer Justine Lee Photographer Andria Lo

IN ITS 117-YEAR HISTORY, the Sierra Club has never had an elected president who was a person of color — that is, until Allison Chin came around. Chin, a Chinese American, took the helm of the nation’s largest and arguably most influential environmental organization in 2008. Her vision is to promote a core ethic of diversity while continuing to appeal to the individual’s sense of global responsibility.

Stranger Than Fiction

Asian American filmmakers build upon a documentary legacy and expand to the narrative genre.

ASIAN AMERICAN FILMMAKERS are no strangers to the nonfiction genre, as made evident by numerous Best Documentary Oscar nominations and wins. Steven Okazaki has had three nominations and a win for Days of Waiting: The Life and Art of Estelle Ishigo (1991). Freida Lee Mock is among the most nominated documentary filmmakers with five nominations and one win for Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994). More recently, Ruby Yang won for The Blood of Yingzhou District in 2007.

Love Boat Memories

Alums reveal hook ups, hangouts and reasons behind the program's nickname.

Imagine four summer weeks with 500 other college students in a country far from home where the legal drinking age is 18. Imagine also, that your parents have fully supported this trip.

Colloquially known as the Love Boat, Taiwan's Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission offers this one-month experience to American-born Chinese students—at a highly subsidized cost—to promote Taiwan's history and culture through language classes, seminars, leisure activities and tours.

We asked a few Love Boat alums to give us the highlights and lowlights from their trip to the Motherland.